Chief: Bombings were 'terrorism'
Brian Manley, interim police chief, avoided such language earlier in favor of legal terminology.
Austin’s interim police chief on Thursday called the Austin bomber a “domestic terrorist,” circling back on previous comments in which he had shied away from using that label to describe the man who killed two people this month with package bombs.
The statement came as many in the community, still reeling in the aftermath of the explosions, urged city leaders to call the attacks acts of terrorism.
On Thursday, interim Police Chief Brian Manley explained why he avoided the “terrorist” label early on, saying that using appropriate legal terminology would have been important if the case ended up in the court system.
“I was very driven and very laser-focused on the investigation, on finding the suspect who was responsible for this, or suspects, and putting a stop to the violence in our community,” Manley said. “I have now had the opportunity to sit back and understand and absorb all of the impacts that it had on a personal level. And that is why I sit here today, and I am very comfortable saying that, to our community and what he did to us, he was a domestic terrorist.”
The comments came during a panel discussion hosted by KUT on the recent bombings and what they revealed about racial tensions in the city. The first two victims of the bomber were black and another was Hispanic. Many who attended expressed frustration about how the media and officials had characterized the bomber, who was a 23-yearold, white, college dropout.
Manley, after listening to a 28-minute recording the bomber left on his cellphone, called him “a very challenged young man” and said it did not appear his acts were motivated by terrorism or hate.
“Was the young man troubled? Absolutely,” said Austin Justice Coalition founder Chas Moore, who was on the panel. “But he was a troubled young man that turned out to be a terrorist.”
“Because he was white, we gave him the benefit of being a human first,” Moore said.
The Patriot Act defines domestic terrorism as any act “dangerous to human life” that violates state or federal laws and is intended to intimidate or coerce a population or influence government.
By that definition, panelist Gilbert Rivera, who represents the Rosewood Neighborhood Association in East Austin, said the bomber has always been and always will be a domestic terrorist in his book.
Kristina Brown, speaking for the nonprofit Counter Balance ATX, said Manley’s comment was “too little, too late.”
“We will not know what that qualification more early in the investigation would have done, what resources would have been provided to make sure that more lives were not lost,” she said.
Mark Conditt, who police identified as the bomber, died March 21 from self-inflicted injuries when he detonated a bomb in his vehicle as authorities closed in on him in Round Rock. In the weeks before, he had planted or mailed a total of six package bombs that killed 39-year-old Anthony Stephan House and 17-year-old Draylen Mason, and wounded five others.
Early in the investigation, many feared that the attacks could be racially motivated, since the first three bombs detonated on the east side of town and seemed potentially to be targeting prominent black families. At the time, Manley said police had not ruled out hate as a possible motive. It put the community on edge, particularly those in East Austin, many of whom gathered together at a town hall meeting March 15 to discuss the ongoing threat and the urgent need for neighbors to rally together.
When the fourth explosion happened in Southwest Austin, injuring two white men who triggered a trip wire, police and the city scrambled to understand the bomber’s motivations. Even today, some believe race was a factor in the attacks.
“He’s a terrorist, suicide bomber at the end of the day,” said Zeke Prado, whose aunt Esperanza “Hope” Herrera was critically injured in the third bombing. “I felt it was a racist action.”
Prado, in trying to understand what could have motivated someone to try to kill his aunt, said he had looked at his grandmother’s house on Galindo Street where the attack happened. It was one of the oldest on the block in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood, and he asked whether that had something to do with it.
This week, he said the family moved back into the home to try to regain a sense of normalcy, his grandmother making tortillas in the kitchen like old times.
“It’s still, for me, a little eerie to think about what could have happened,” he said.
Prado was one of about 100 people who filled the auditorium at the George Washington Carver Museum to watch Thursday’s panel discussion as it streamed live on the radio. Those who participated, including Moore, Rivera and BRAVE Communities leader Emlyn Lee, described a city built on a racial divide that has become increasingly gentrified through the years, leading to disparate policing and institutional racism.
“We have not gotten rid of segregation,” said Connie Kirk, who grew up on East 11th Street. “Segregation is stronger now.”
The crowd offered up loud applause as Moore urged white people to “get comfortable” talking about race.
Manley offered up solutions, including requiring all officers to wear body cameras and training in de-escalation and fair and impartial policing. “We are not perfect and we are not going to be perfect, but we are going to learn from when we come up short,” he said.
“It’s always a discussion. We need a solution,” Prado said.
Manley’s decision to characterize the bombings as acts of domestic terrorism will not affect the investigation, he said.
“It will not change the ongoing investigation, but what I think it will do is allow us, as a community, to come together and not only work on healing but also work on how we address this issue,” Manley said. “Because it has created quite a discussion across the country in many circles about what is terrorism, what is foreign terrorism, what is domestic terrorism. I think that’s a healthy discussion and debate that should take place.”